Ready to start. As mentioned above, I started with the front wheel because that's the 'easy' build

First spokes going in - all trailing spokes

First side trailing spokes laced

Flip the wheel and fit the trailing spokes on the other side

It was soon after this that I encountered the short spoke, so the rest of the photos are of the rear wheel.

And here she is, all spokes installed and sitting in the truing stand for the first time. It's not overly obvious, but none of the spokes have any tension in them and some are very, very curved.

Thus began the long (when you do it the way I do it) task of tensioning up the spokes, setting the hub in the middle of the rim, getting the rim flat and getting the wheel in the centre of the hub. I fiddled and farted and took a break and had another play and eventually, she was nicely trued. Not perfect but everything less than a mm.

Rim tape and tyre fitted and a wheel is born. Man those rims look deep

Tomorrow, I get the last spoke and have a go at the front wheel ... again.

Actually, I didn't have much of a decision to make. I wanted Ultegra hubs. Chain Reaction were miles and away the best price. They only had them in 36 spokes ... which suited me because that's the way I was leaning, that or 32.

That wheel feels very strong. I reckon that if I ever T-bone a car I'll cut it in half With the rim and tyre being so deep though, I wonder how it'll handle in a cross wind.

It took me all evening, but that's because I was just taking it quietly, sitting back and having a think, running away to hide from time to time. It's a pleasant way to spend an evening actually. No way would I want to do this as a job, it'd take all the fun out of it.

Sorry for being a lazy bastard, and not sifting throught this thread for the answer, as im sure its here somewhere, but how much has this set of wheels cost you all up, minus the tyres, tubes, rim tape, and all the hardware ?
Just curious like.

Sorry for being a lazy bastard, and not sifting throught this thread for the answer, as im sure its here somewhere, but how much has this set of wheels cost you all up, minus the tyres, tubes, rim tape, and all the hardware ?Just curious like.

Yes, it adds up doesn't it. We think of rims and hubs, not realising that it's the rest of the gear that does the financial damage.

Incidentally, those hubs cost less than a pair of good quality, sealed cartridge hubs (similar to the ones Velocity use in their wheelsets) from BJs and this is a case where I believe that rebuildable is better and certainly, the Ultegra is a good, sound hub (and very smooth )

A set of DeepV road wheels, built by Velocity, cost $550 from BJs. I've seen them less elsewhere though not a lot.

Richard

for the curious, BJs is one of Dave's and my favourite lbs - Bernie Jones on Diagonal Rd.

The front wheel's finished Once again, everything seemed to fall into place nicely though it took forever to remove a low spot in the rim near the Velocity sticker. Once that was done and the tension done up, the remaining sideways wiggles capitulated with little more than a token struggle and centralising it was never an issue

btw, I'm sooooo looking forward to riding this bike. No, I'm not expecting great things from her, just a lot of confirmation of theories and beliefs but you know what? Sometimes, that is the better part of the experiment